My Gift To You

Chapter Fourteen: But All the Drugs in This World Won’t Save Him From Himself

It was no doubt going to kill him one of these days, but he lived for the hollow feeling it gave him. It made him the most insignificant speck of mineral on the sandy beach, filling up every last crevice and leaving him number than anything else in the world could. Starting at the toes, the substance would erase him until the only thing left in its wake was smoke drifting through the night sky, flirting with the winking stars and glowing street lamps. It mocked him until it was painful, but then again he couldn’t feel it anyway.

Only the disgusting tar could give him what he had wanted for years: a wall of invisibility. He felt safe when he had the stick in between his lips, like for that instance he was nothing to nobody. Not a single person would raise their heads and stare at him with pity in their eyes, no one would frown and tell him how sorry they were for him. The invisibility cloak around him, Benji could watch without being watched. He could finally not be a part of the world, could sit back and see how it spun for other people. He didn’t need to think. All he ever seemed to be was a pair of eyes, praying to have the life he could never have.

The saying “the grass is greener on the other side” always made him laugh with contempt. It was a cheap way of making stupid people realize that when they did hop over the fence, the shadow that was on their yard would move over to the meadow they were on now. That the dead grass they had been standing on on one side of the fence had now carried over to where they were currently located. It was pointless to try to actually find that greener grass, because it was only an illusion. It only looked rich and healthy, when in reality the very second you actually got to that greener pasture, the mirror would turn. There was no winning save the feeling of appreciation one got when one went back home.

No one has respect anymore except the people who go through their entire lives without having what they wish to have. One can’t miss what they’ve never known, any blind, deaf or dumb person will tell you that. But Benji had had, for a brief glittering moment, what he spent his nights begging for. He was one of the exceptions. He missed what he lost and wanted to throttle every single person around him for never being able to get it back again. No one could tell him that he didn’t have the right to be a bitter asshole and to move on. Fuck them because he couldn’t move on. Fuck them because they didn’t know. And, most importantly, fuck himself for honestly thinking that hope and prayer could help him.



Benji took one last drag of his cigarette and held it in his lungs for as long as he could, then made shapes as he exhaled through his mouth. Every time the smoke left him it took away a small piece of him. Someday Benji was hoping to have nothing left except a vague memory of the man he used to be.

Surely drinking would do a better job at what he desired, but he hated the taste of beer. Vodka wasn’t that bad if he could get his hands on some. Dropping the cigarette butt, Benji crushed it with his shoe and slowly rose to his feet, brushing grass from his pants from where he had sat on the curb. He stared at the moon for several minutes, then turned silently and went to his car.

The trunk was still open from when he had taken out the Camel package, the trash bags filled with his changes of clothes pushed to the back so no harm would come to them. His lungs were beginning to ache from holding his breath, he dared to take in fresh oxygen. A grimace crossed his face when the smell invaded his nose. “I’ll risk being home late to wash this crap,” Benji told himself.

If he was an irrational man, Benji would close the old Cadillac’s trunk, climb into the driver’s seat and drive away to an uncharted island to live out the rest of his days. He would never have to answer to anybody but himself, never have to worry again. Just him and the white sand beaches. Of course, it was complete nonsense. He’d run out of the cigarettes he was becoming dependent on, hang himself after a few weeks.

The thought of running away crossed his mind many times, though he was too afraid to actually go out and do it. Benji wanted to be a kid again. He was wearing himself out trying to support his family when it didn’t seem to help—they were always getting by by the skin of their teeth. What energy and hope he had was used up a long time ago, leaving a broken shell of who he once was. Constantly fighting a losing battle put a strain on his heart, the only way he could protect it was to turn his back on everything…and now, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling. It was killing him, but he couldn’t let Billy hurt him, so he would continue to feebly control his actions and do nothing about his emotions.

He supposed that things could be a lot worse than they were now, the family could be kicked out of their home again with nowhere to go. They had a roof over their heads and food to eat, Benji shouldn’t complain. But he had told himself this so many times that it was becoming a useless redundancy.

With a sigh, which annoyed him deeply because he was doing that so often, he took his trash bag into the park restroom to get changed and cleaned up before he went home.

Since the fight here Benji had begun to lock the men’s room door when he went inside. If the guy was so desperate to relieve himself, he could go into the women’s restroom (it’s not like girls went in there anyway, the finicky bitches thought the toilets were too dirty to set their precious asses on).

His left hand released the minute he had turned the deadbolt lock. The plastic bag hit the ground with a soft rustling sound and Benji, wide-eyed, began fumbling around his pants pockets. Muttering to himself, repeating the same three sentences over and over again so he wouldn’t forget them, he pulled out his Fat Little Notebook and a pen. Quickly opening to a fresh page, he scribbled down the words that were speeding out of his mouth, the first lines to a song: ‘spend your lazy, endless crazy days inside my head, you’re so selfish you’re not the only one who thinks he’s dead. I’m paid to smile, now I’m on trial for what you think I said. But I never said that everything would be okay, and I never said that we would live to see another day.’

It had hit him like a safe falling from the sky. Just as soon as it came it went and Benji stood in front of the bathroom door like an idiot, staring at the messy written words like they were in a different language. Slowly coming back to his senses, he set the things in his hands on the corner of the nearest sink and kicked his bag into the main area of the restroom.

Never able to stare at his body in a mirror for a very long time, he changed with his back facing it. He thought about what the lyrics could possibly mean, as if they were a message from God or something, and came up with the conclusion that they signified him. One side of his himself talking to the other, but knowing that most people wouldn’t have a clue about what he was trying to say or they weren’t smart enough to realize what was going on, he’d say that it was about an old girlfriend or something.

-

The house had scared him at night since he was a child. It was too dark, too quiet. Though no boogie men came out after sunset and the walls didn’t ooze blood or disembodied sounds, the helpless feeling Benji had in the gloomy halls never ceased to send chills down his spine. The silliness of it all was enough to make him laugh…if it wasn’t happening to him.

Shrugging out of his jacket he hung it in the closet in the front foyer. He went into the kitchen to put away the food his mother had surely set out for him and to check her medication before going upstairs. There was a note on top the Tupperware container telling Benji how to reheat the meal with an added message from Joel that band practice had to be moved from tomorrow afternoon to Wednesday night because of a doctor’s appointment for Aaron. He had already called Billy and Paul with the news, they were fine with it. There was also, Joel wrote in all capital letters, a bar that had booked them next week Friday at 11:00pm to play a show. It was late, but it was a start.

Putting the note on the bulletin board next to the phone, Benji set his dinner back into the refrigerator. He added refills for his mother’s prescriptions to the shopping list and made his rounds through the first floor: straightening up things here and there and checking to see if all the doors and windows were locked (the creep-out factor of the house and the bad neighborhood the reasons for this). He then trudged up the stairs, trying not to make much noise.

Sarah was his first stop. Benji slowly opened the bedroom door and looked in at her, spying her beloved teddy bear on the floor. He quietly walked toward the bed and picked up the stuffed animal, fixing its moveable appendages so they weren’t all over the place. Managing to lift his sister’s arm up without waking her, Benji slipped Teddy between the girl’s arm and pillow. Because she was sprawled out on her stomach, Benji could only lightly kiss the crown of Sarah’s head and wish her pleasant dreams.

He smiled softy as he left the room and shut the door behind him, trying to make his way down the hall to his mother’s room without killing himself because of the lack of light.

At one point during the night Ms. Madden had opened one of her bedroom windows, causing the room to seem more chilly than anything the Snow Miser could cook up. Benji closed the window tightly and expected to see his mother shivering under her many bed sheets, which wasn’t the case. If anything she was too warm. So she wouldn’t be miserable, Benji pulled back one of her heavy quilts and folded it at the foot of her bed.

“Good-night, Mommy,” he said softly. Able to kiss one of his family members on the forehead, he did so and made sure she was comfortable. He nearly fell asleep standing in the middle of the room, but snapped his head up and went into his own bedroom.

Checking to see if Joel had set the alarm clock (he had), Benji took his shoes and clothes off. Too tired to even care that his clothes were laying in a pile on the floor, he got into bed and pulled the covers over himself. He turned away from his brother’s bed and put the pillow over his head so the light from Joel’s night light wouldn’t prevent him from sweet slumber.

It seemed like he had shut his eyes only for ten seconds before the infernal buzzing of the alarm clock invaded his skull cavern. His good eye snapped open and he groaned, hearing Joel’s fist come down on the clock to stop the noise it was making. The comotion of Joel getting out of bed proved to Benji that going back to sleep was futile.

“Morning, Sunshine,” Joel said and shook his older twin gently to help him awake.

The bed was too warm and comfortable, the sheets like a cave. Benji was too tired to get up, he was already getting stomach cramps from the lack of sleep his body had gotten, though he was all too used to it by now. Benji could only groan again in reply, the words he wanted to say unable to form in his slack-jawed state. 4:30 in the morning was too early to wake up.

“If you want to sleep for another hour, that’s okay. I can—”

Benji shook his head and threw the covers off of himself. “Nah,” he managed out and got to his feet. “You can shower first while I get some clothes on, make breakfast and get everything ready for the day. Try not to wake Mom and Sarah, would you?”

Joel nodded and left his brother alone to face the day.